Chapter 9: Conclusion

To summarize, this article gave extensive information about the background on VR which included explanations about the importance of the human senses and the concepts of immersion and presence. Also the history of VR was mentioned briefly. In chapter 5, VR was connected to a touristic context, offering up some established cases of DMOs with already released VR promotional campaigns, growth potential estimates and possible use cases for future applications. Furthermore, it was determined that VR applications can strongly influence the first stage of the customer journey, where customers are looking to be inspired.

Most importantly, numerous potential advantages and risks of VEs in tourism were introduced. They were regarded under different viewpoints, namely sampling and showcasing, virtual travel acceptance and accessibility. Within these categories, pro’s and con’s identified by researchers in previous reports have been introduced.

The objective of this article was, amongst others, to identify possible (theoretical) benefits and risks that are attached to the implementation of VR applications into destination promotion. It can be concluded that there are numerous ways for destinations to establish themselves in the VR market, each of them brings a multitude of potential benefits and risks. The different benefits and risks were also compared against traditional methods of destination promotion.

With the stating of several other practice cases in other areas of tourism and aforementioned background information, the author hopes to have given a holistic overview for readers about the topic of VR in tourism. What is most important for tourism marketers is to evaluate all the different promotional opportunities given and to weigh the pros and cons VR can offer in their individual situation.